Penticton radio telescope to search for the invisible substance of the universe

Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun12.25.2012

A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of “inflation” produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.) For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe. The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 375,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then. The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a backlight for later developments of the universe.

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Construction will begin near Penticton next month of a radio telescope which aims to identify the invisible matter that makes up nearly 96 per cent of the substance of the universe.

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is a co-venture of a team of leading cosmologists from the University of British Columbia, McGill University and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, according to UBC astrophysicist Gary Hinshaw.

A test bed is being built on the campus of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory near Okanagan Falls while the project proponents secure funding for construction that could cost as much as $12 million.

The telescope — an array of five 20m by 100m cylindrical reflectors covering an area about the size of three football fields — will measure cosmic sound waves called Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in an effort to better understand the recent history of galaxies, said Hinshaw.

“It will make the largest volume survey of the structure of the universe ever conducted,” said Hinshaw, who came to UBC two years ago to help drive the project. “The Americans and the Europeans are preparing space missions for a similar kind of survey, but we think we have a way to do it much faster and cheaper than the traditional way.”

“Instead of looking at galaxies one by one and measuring their position, you can (measure the expansion of the universe) with radio maps,” he explained. “We are excited that we might be able to scoop the big boys.”

Development funds of $800,000 came from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation, British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund and UBC, which funds Hinshaw’s research chair.

CHIME is a natural extension of work describing the kinds of matter that make up the universe that Hinshaw has just completed with a team of scientists led by NASA.

Using nine years of observations from a space probe built to observe microwave patterns, data analysis from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe was able to snap what the scientists call “a baby picture of the universe.”

In addition to confirming the predictions of inflation — a crucial element of the Big Bang theory on the formation of the universe — WMAP also helped define the proportions of the matter in the universe more accurately than ever before, said Hinshaw.

Matter composed of atoms comprises about 4.6 per cent of the matter in the universe and is the only matter that is directly observable.

Another 24 per cent of the universe is so-called dark matter that can be observed by its gravitational effects.

The remaining matter in the universe is what cosmologists call “dark energy,” which is a source of anti-gravity that is pushing the universe apart.

The CHIME radio telescope will measure the radio signature of hydrogen gas to map the recent history of nearby galaxies to learn more about the nature of the substance that is driving them apart.

Earlier in the history of the universe the gravitational effects of dark matter dominated and helped the stars and galaxies to form, but that period has given way to a new dynamic in which the antigravitational effects of dark energy are causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, Hinshaw said.

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Penticton radio telescope to search for the invisible substance of the universe

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